A conference held at at the Ashmolean Museum on 12 October 2017 and the Courtauld Institute of Art on 13 October 2017, convened by Faisal Devji and Mallica Kumbera Landrus (University of Oxford) with Deborah Swallow and Zehra Jumabhoy (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London). The conference was co-organised by the Ashmolean Museum, the Courtauld Institute of Art—Sackler Research Forum, the Oxford Centre for Global History and the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, and co-funded by the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development of Somerville College, the John Fell Fund, the Radhakrishnan Fund, the University Engagement Programme (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), and the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.
Day 1, Dreams and Nightmares:
Spectacle, Partition and Progress (The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Welcome by Director of the Ashmolean Museum, Alexander Sturgis
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Introduction to the day and the theme of Conference
Faisal Devji
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Amritsar’s Partition Museum
Meghnad Desai
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Partition/Independence? Working with Contested South Asian Political Histories in Manchester's Museums and Galleries
Nick Merriman
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
On Lines of Control
Hammad Nasar
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Who Counts and How? Independence and the Aesthetics of Caste
Kajri Jain
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Mother India: Nargis and female stardom from 1947 to 1957
Rachel Dwyer
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Bapu’s Miracle, the Quaid’s Boon and a Freedom to Remake
Salma Siddique
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Partha Mitter in conversation with Mallica Kumbera Landrus
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Spotlight: Gulammohammed Sheikh and Nilima Sheikh
No public recording
He Ram! The Optics of a Dying Moment in the Life of a Nation
Sumathi Ramaswamy
No public recording
A Gandhian Modernism? Nandalal Bose and the painting of politics
Gautham Shiralagi
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Mother Dearest: The Body of the Indian Nation
Zehra Jumabhoy
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
The Dasturzada Dr Jal Pavry Memorial Lecture
Event and Code: The Future of the Image, and of Nations
Chris Pinney
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Day 2, Futures Lost and Found:
Citizenship and Contemporary Art (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
Welcome by Director of the Courtauld Institute, Deborah Swallow
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Introductory comments
Abhay Sardesai
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
An Indian Darkness: Notes on a Diffident Modernity
Srirupa Roy
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Shahid Sajjad, Zainul Abedin and a Turn to Nature in Pakistan 1965-71
Mariah Lookman
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
“Dressed to Impress”: Indian art in the western gaze
Sona Datta
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Subodh Gupta, Steel and the Subject of India
Shruti Kapila
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Shahzia Sikander in conversation with Faisal Devji
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Amar Kanwar in conversation with Rattanamol Johal
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Saleem Arif Quadri in conversation with Sarah Wilson
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Artifact and Memory
Sudarshan Shetty and Vyjayanthi Rao
Video Podcast / Audio Podcast
Humanities & Identities
Rethinking the Contemporary: The World since the Cold War